Disclaimer: I do not own the characters portrayed herein. I mean no harm with this fic and do not profit from it in any way, shape or form.

Warnings: See Zechs. See Zechs angst. Angst, Zechs, angst. See Zechs angst over Treize.

Pairings: 13X6

Archived: at www.angelfire.com/anime2/scheherazade (eventually) and if you want it, just ask! ^_^

Notes: This is my humble entry into the GW addiction angst contest. This fic takes place right before the white fang guys approach Zechs....

Also may apologies to my beta-readers, I was procrastinating, so this is self-betaed *cringes* I promise it won’t happen again!

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Milliard Peacecraft stretched his arms high above his head and yawned loudly. He was sprawled in an aquatic blue armchair in the living area of his small apartment on colony C-138 in the L-1 cluster clad only in a pair of faded blue jeans. It was not at all like the surroundings he was used to, but the small quarters were much less constricting than that hateful mask. He scrubbed at his sleep filled eyes and gazed blearily at the blinking red numbers on the electric clock that was on small table positioned next to his chair. It blinked 5:30, which confused the young man until he remembered that he was off of military time and it was the evening’s dark that touched the sky, not the gentle navy blue of morning. Smiling thankfully to himself, he realized that he was in need of the rest; he hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Not that it mattered; he had nowhere to go and no one to meet. His schedule was clear, and that scared him more than the feeling of imminent death that Tallgeese delivered.

He could see himself, sleeping all day and patronizing bars at night, as he saw his former self patronizing the finest dining halls in the evenings and sleeping alongside perfection. No, he wasn’t perfect, Milliard had to remind himself, Although he may have seemed that way. He was the one who was patronizing. He had always patronized Zechs, but Zechs, the fool, had loved him, adored his commanding officer with he passion one would feel for a soulmate. Oh, what a complete idiot Zechs had been. Milliard had shed that weak facade when his mask broke. It left behind it a trail of blood and freedom.

The tall blond talked into the kitchenette and opened the small refrigerator. There were the leftovers of a dinner out at the local diner chilling alongside a half-used pack of beer. He grabbed one of the cans and popped the lid, listening ‘til the soft hiss of carbonation ended before lifting it to his lips. He shouldn’t really be drinking as much as he was, he wasn’t getting enough to eat, and, with his general sloth with regards to taking care of himself, he was slowly degenerating. The alcohol made his mind lightly fuzzy and enabled him to forget his woes momentarily.

His memories plagued him more and more lately. The remembered feel of soft lips pressed against his and of sweet whispered words after moments of pure, unadulterated passion tantalized him. They made him want to do anything to hear the voice again, to just be able to look into Treize’s cerulean eyes. Staring into the amber depths of the can, Milliard sighed. Treize had known that Zechs would die for him; Zechs just never believed he would ask him to. Months after, he still felt the sting of betrayal when Treize had told him, and it still made him bitter.

He realized it was wrong of him to have reconstructed 01’s Gundam, but he had to do it. He had thought that Treize, of all people, could understand his need for a fair fight. He snorted at the thought. The next time, he swore, he would show Treize the importance of his beliefs. Not that he’d ever see Treize again.

Milliard held his head in one hand, the other still holding the warming alcohol, and groaned. "Treize..." he murmured into the still and empty room, "Why? Why everything? I thought it would work out. You always made it feel that way. And now what?" He looked around himself disgustedly. "I’ve fallen from your graces... so fast... This is not how you made it seem! You killed me Treize... I loved you and you killed me; you asked me to bleed and I did. You asked me to die for you and I offered up my wounds but they were not enough. Never *fucking* enough, right?"

The blond had stood and was now angrily addressing a spot on the wall. It was white and a shadow fell across it from the overhead light that was not turned on. Milliard concentrated all of his anger to that one spot. "All I want to know... all I ever wanted to know was you. What you thought or what you approved of or if you would have done the same thing in that situation. You never told me!"

Milliard’s voice was rising with rage and his eyes burned at the wall with pure hatred. "And then, the *moment, * the God-damned moment I do something you don’t approve of; I’m gone! I’m a liability to be dealt with. With as little harm to yourself as possible, of course. No..." He was standing next to the wall now, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Never would anything be allowed to tarnish your perfect record. Never could *I,* the lowly underling, be allowed to corrupt the perfection that embodies you." He pulled his sinewy right arm back for a punch as he screamed, "You Bastard!" His hand ripped through the drywall, marring the white plain of the wall and causing a dark rent to appear there.

His fist bled from cuts he received from the angry pieces of plaster that broke apart at his touch. His destructive touch that broke the wall; that broke the mask too. Ice blue eyes stared dispassionately at the crimson drops that wove over pale skin. Small crystals drawn by the false gravity of this place splashed on Milliard’s jean clad, folded knee. Zechs deserved to bleed. He had made Milliard’s hands stained with the blood of millions. What were a few more droplets to feed the monster within him now? Nothing.

When he was in Treize’s favor, his blood was gold. It was worth more than sweet ambrosia and nectar. But, as long as Treize felt nothing for him, he could bleed all over the place and it would make no difference; he was bleeding dirt.

The sweetness of tears neglected to grace his eyes as he spoke aloud once more, "I loved you... I love you, Treize. But it was never that for you, was it? Oh, I am not so foolish as to not see that I was no more than a diversion and loyal puppy, but, God damnit, it hurts!" He clenched his bloodied hand hard so that the blood pulsed out anew with his exertions.

The still rational part of his mind told him to go to the medicine cabinet and bandage his wounds. He rose from his position on the floor and walked mechanically to the small white bathroom. He stumbled to the porcelain sink and, grasping the edges as if his life depended on it, he stared at the semi-reflective surface of the highly polished basin and saw his warped image in the metal of the faucet. He pushed his long, flowing hair back from his face and raised his eyes to the mirrored cabinet that hung above the sink. Panting, Milliard absently stared at this mirror image. Limp golden hair fell into his sallow face and almost covered his bloodshot eyes from view.

His good hand reached for the catch of the metal door and pressed on the lever. It stutteringly slid forward, leaving the near bare shelves open for analyzation. On the lowest shelf there was a tube of toothpaste, a blue toothbrush and a few bottles of aspirin and such. The second shelf held a small box of Band-Aids as well as a razor resting against a couple of ace bandages and some gauze. He grabbed some of the last two objects and, setting them on the edge of the sink, swung the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet closed. Twisting the water tap, he waited until the water was sufficiently warm before inserting his bleeding hand unto the running water. The pink tinted waste liquid swirled in the basin, carrying with it all traces of blood. He pressed a small towel against his hand to dry it before he placed the gauze over his cut knuckles. Then he wrapped the ace bandage around it to keep it over the wound.

He observed his handiwork for a moment or two, then paced into the adjoining bedroom. He flopped down onto the squeaky old bed and sighed a huge gut-wrenching sigh. Even though he wouldn’t ever go back to Treize, he still loved him deeply, and was ashamed by how much he longed for the man. His resentment mixed with his adoration ad left him as the empty shell he had become. He could look around his room and find the new, empty counterparts to what he used to have. A small bearu full of jeans and tee shirts was in the place of the few drawers he had kept his casual clothing in. He had only really needed three drawers back then, one for his underclothing, one for some nice shirts and one for the few pairs of pants that he didn’t have to hang up. He had always been dressed well, back then he had kept his uniform well pressed and hung in his closet next to all his dress outfits. Silk shirts, pressed pants and fitted fabrics filled his old closet, but he had taken none of that with him when he had been preparing to leave. Every article of clothing had a painful history to him; the red flowing dress-shirt that he had worn one night that he could no longer look at without picturing it crumpled in a ball on the wine red carpet of Treize’s quarters, the slacks that he had been wearing to a dinner out with his lover, the white jacket that was missing a button which was presumably somewhere in a little used conference room in France... they all held memories too far away from him now. So in his new closet there were merely two articles of clothing; the ridiculous Sank Kingdom garb that he had been wearing when he had first come to space and a beige trench-coat that was the last new piece of clothing he had bought in a very long time.

His eyes wandered to the small nightstand next to the bed. It was made of fiberboard covered with a laminate that was painted to look like cherry wood. His old nightstand *had* been cherry, and it was exceptionally made too. It had one drawer in it, and the handle had been a rosebud, carved in high relief out of the wood. Treize had gotten it for him, and the small structure had become some sort of shrine to the man. On the table; a single red wine rose in a bud vase that always reminded Zechs of the man’s passion for the flower, an almost burnt out candle in an antique holder that he always lit for Treize’s visits, a book almost always lay next to these things, usually a volume lent to him by his bibliophile lover. Inside the small drawer there could be counted upon to have two things; pictures of his obsession, sometimes with himself and sometimes standing alone, and a small tube, almost always used and kept for the occasions when Zechs had insisted that his coming to Treize’s quarters every night was an imposition. The nightstand now in his room was without a drawer, and held only an alarm clock on its dull surface.

Milliard sighed deep within his chest and leaned back to rest his head on the pillow of his bed. The thought of Treize always affected him so deeply. He tried to distance himself from the memories, but they were clear as day to him. Whenever he closed his eyes, memories came flooding back. They screamed in his skull and confronted his eyes with their ghost visions. He couldn’t sleep nights because the memories would taunt him of another place, in another time, where he used to be.

He could pretend. Oh yes, sometimes he would pretend, that everything was just back to normal. Dream that the bed that he lay on was the one he used to know; and the hand stroking him wasn’t his own. He’d caught himself many times speaking to the one he knew wasn’t there, as if Treize could hear him from all this distance, or that he cared.

That was the problem with this war, Milliard decided, no one really cared. They needed a way to be shown that they needed to care to end the war. Milliard knew that he could have given them that reason, but he himself had started to not care anymore. As he lay in the dirty bed in his shabby apartment, he started to think about all these things too deeply. Whenever he tried to think things out, the memories would crowd in, he knew it had to mean something, but he was just too tired to want to find out. He shoved himself up out of the bed and towards his shirt and trench coat. He needed to get out of the apartment; he needed to surround himself with people to isolate his thoughts. He started towards a dark little diner/bar that he’d started to frequent. Maybe he’d see something to make him fight again, though nothing would equal his old ambition. All that was the past of Zechs was gone, there was only Milliard’s dark future to live for the blond man now.